Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022)

 

Seven Oscars is a compelling argument for at least giving a film the time of day. Unfortunately, Everything Everywhere All at Once is quite possibly the worst example ever witnessed of how meaningless the Academy Awards really are. The grounds for the awards are, firstly, blatant tokenism: the lead characters are all Chinese Americans and the film vaguely gestures at saying something about the immigrant experience. Then it cashes in on the faddish, currently massively overused notion of alternative universes, with Michelle Yeoh's protagonist jumping in swift succession from one to another, gathering resources from the lives of each of her parallel selves while being pursued by her moody daughter who has done the same. Interspersed with all of this is switching constantly between any novelty medium or genre you can name, including martial arts (of course), animation and puerile comedy, lest those with zero attention spans get bored or anyone twigs onto the fact that it really has nothing to say. But Academy voters cannot admit being confused, so it has to be plauded as being a virtuoso work of diverse genius, encapsulating the 'everything' promised by the title. And naturally there's also a reassuringly feelgood ending, with the whole philosophical life lesson ending up as 'be happy with what you've got', after nearly two and a half hours frenetic sensory bombardment. Yes, it's visually imaginative, but when that serves no purpose, it's nowhere near enough.

4/10

Prospect (Zeek Earl & Chris Caldwell, 2018)

 

An odd little fish, this. In the age of mega-budget FX-heavy sci-fi blockbusters, it's highly uncommon for indie filmmakers to venture into the genre at all, let alone the extraterrestrial future subgenre. Nevertheless, we're asked to take on faith that the characters of Prospect, a father and daughter looking for treasure, are on a biohazard-filled alien planet and not just the American national park which it was filmed in, and their spaceship and tools, which would have looked dated even in the 1970s, somehow got them there.

So the film has to fall back on plot, performances and dialogue, and while there are no surprises in terms of how the story turns once the protagonists' venture quickly heads south, is just about stands up on the strength of the latter two aspects, particularly a pre-The Mandalorian Pedro Pascal as smooth-talking chancer in the mould of Tom Hanks in the remake of The Ladykillers. It's at least diverting and proves that there is still hope for sci-fi aspirants outside the big studio system.

5/10